Green Porno - a feverishly hilarious look at sex in the natural world. I am especially partial toward the spider shenanigans; who knew I had sex the same way as in the insect kingdom?

On November 5, 2006, the now infamous To Catch a Predator made a somber turn as suspect Louis William Conradt committed suicide after a SWAT team entered his house, Dateline NBC cameras recording the action. The show has been no stranger to criticism, but this shocking ending opened the flood gates.

As NBC was revealing the results of a forensic report on Conradt’s computer (contained porn, including some child pornography), Esquire magazine released an incisive critique of the circumstances surrounding Conradt’s death: Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die. The article criticizes almost every aspect of the investigation and subsequent arrest, and draws heavily on unaired footage that contradicts the official NBC story.

NBC responded, stressing the number of previous investigations that had led to convictions, and that ultimately, Conradt was a sexual offender. Unfortunately, declining to chastise Dateline NBC for its means in light of its ends moves the debate into murky territory. However, neither should critics editorialize so egregiously (e.g., Esquire expressing disappointment over a detective writing up a warrant for Conradt rather than quitting) when the truth is damning enough.

Either way, none of this bodes well for what journalist John Hockenberry learned about network television at Dateline NBC. (Hint: NBC is in it for the ratings.)

Hillary’s campaign, after her Tuesday night “gang bang” (Wonkette), is claiming that she has come out on top. After a night of stonewalling, contradicting, and avoiding any (let alone direct) answers to tough questions, Clinton now seems, well, taken aback at her opponents negative disposition. She and her staff are disappointed, if you will, that her fellow candidates have “abandoned the Politics of Hope,” that they had all unknowingly signed on to before the debate. Or, rather, it would be more honestly told that Hillary spiked her losing the debate with this clever slogan so that people had no room to bad-mouth her after she again failed to tell voters what it is exactly that she means. Anyway, Clinton has come out on top. While everyone else is “piling on” to her for lying and hiding and dodging, at least she remains hopeful.

Of course, she should really probably just remain in the kitchen.

I really can’t stand Hillary. She was shady as a First Lady and I think that she’s even shadier as a candidate for the presidency. I couldn’t tell you what the woman wants for the country. I think that her response to her opponents’ demands for a more solidly attackable (and a much less flighty, slippery, or tricky) Hillary (who works a little harder to make full document disclosure from her days as Bill’s number two readily available), is pathetic. They’re only attacking you because you’re in the lead? Get a grip. They’re attacking you because if anybody knows anything about anything, they know there is one thing Democrats don’t need in 2008 and it’s another flip-flop, another scandal, or another secretive politician.

I wish Hillary would own up to her beliefs and have a little more faith in the intellect of the common-American. I for one am unconvinced of her sincerity, to say the least.

I mean, all I really wanna do is have sex with John Edwards. Wait, was that too much?

Make A Cylon Jack-O-Lantern - Just in time for Halloween! Cylons, of course, are those war machines from Battlestar Galactica with the panning red laser eye. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.

And… um… also just in time for Halloween… candy corn dildo! Fun for the whole family!

Similarly, everything you don’t want to know about your kid’s sex life:

To figure out what teens are up to when their parents aren’t watching, we gave 53 boys and 47 girls from four Manhattan high schools a series of 37 questions designed to tease out exactly how far they go. Then went after 100 parents…and put them to the test, with one difference: We asked them to guess their own teens’ answers. As you’ll see, the high schoolers and the parents live on fairly different planets.

Erik Blevin’s Kick Ass Movie Pitches:

You know how some movies get sold on one idea or sentence (or a sentence filled with an idea)? Idea #1: What if the Internet turned into a Were-wolf?

The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday said it took “appropriate action” against employees at its Paris theme park who were caught simulating sex while dressed as Disney characters in a digital video that has received wide attention on the Internet.

secret wall tattoos - You never know when you’ll spend a night in a hotel, only to find some secret graffiti hidden behind the generic paintings.

From the department of useful internet tools: Ridester, “the dependable way to rideshare between cities in the USA”.

Best best best best photo description ever: SF Gate: galaxies colliding. “Is that a red giant or are you just happy to see me?” Those looking for a more academic description can head over to Astronomy Picture of the Day: October 24 and learn more about the Antennae galaxies in collision.

New York Changing - A gallery of New York, then and now. Some of the changes are more noticeable than others.

David Plain - “At last, a decent episode of David Blaine’s “Street Magic” has found its way to the Internet. Amazing! (Strong language.)”

Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table has been named the best science book ever written by the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Shuttle launch seen from ISS - A couple images, via comic-writer-extraordinaire Warren Ellis, of a space shuttle launch as seen (supposedly) from the International Space Station. However, the ISS is at an altitude of about 360 km (according to Wikipedia), and these pictures look to be taken from an altitude more like 15 km…. so you be the judge.

vNES - An online NES emulator. In other words, you can play the original Nintendo right in your browser. Huzzah!

AskMeFi: Metafilter, “magazine” of the future! - An interesting discussion comparing Metafilter to high-brow magazines (Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Economist, etc.). There are clear distinctions between link aggregators like Metafilter and full-blown magazines like The New Yorker, but an interesting discussion none-the-less.

Ambient Devices, makers of the ambient orb and ambient umbrella, has created a clock which combinesGoogle Calendar and analog timekeeping. Following their inventive name scheme, it’s called an ambient clock.

onegoodmove: Jack Bauer Justice:

What is it about the right-wing’s penchant for TV justice. Last night it was the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore. “You know what this is really. It’s Jack Bauer justice … he should run the CIA” to which Bill Maher responds, “you do realize it’s a TV show,” but Rep. Barney Frank (D) Massachusetts got to the heart of the matter when he said, “It’s not terrorists we’re talking about, it’s people accused of terrorism.”

40+ ways to make money on the internet - I might have to look at this more closely.

My friend recently (as in three months ago) informed me of a development in book publishing. It seems that for a small price (not much more than a regular book), you can design and publish your own book in any minute quantity you want. Normally publishing a book requires printing a whole bunch of them, so this is pretty cool. Self-publishing for the win! Lulu and Blurb are two such companies.

The Department of Olllllllllllld but if you’ve never seen it before, it’s new to you!:

The Powerbook Prank - He wanted a Powerbook. We gave him a P-P-P-Powerbook!

George Washington - “Washington, Washington, six foot eight, weighs a fucking ton.”

To begin with, some art. Fans of the Museum of Modern Art can now purchase a fifty page book containing sketches of every piece of art in the museum. The aptly titled The Every Piece Of Art in The Museum Of Modern Art Book even comes in a deluxe edition, complete with guided tour and hot dog or pretzel.

After AOL released that huge batch of search queries (see August 13’s Undressing the Internet), various sites have scoured the files looking for interesting users. Valleywag.com has started an AOL creepy user watch, up to Volume 15 already. Slate is also chiming in, providing the seven ways people search the web. I’m an omnivore now, but I’m working my way toward obsessive.

YES.com, a site designed to give you the currently playing song and previously playing songs for any radio station across the country. It’s a work in progress, I suppose, but the bigger stations in my area work.

All those lists of “Best Places to Live!” and “Best Places to Work!” and “Best Places to Die!” and so on are obviously subjective. Although the choices in the lists may be good on whatever scale the editor chose, they could easily fail for you. With this in mind comes Find Your Spot, a service which provides you with a tailored list of best places to live based on a questionnaire you fill out. New Jersey? Nowhere on my list. Baltimore, Maryland? #1.

One more in the internet’s long list of useful websites: GopherNow - Your guide to late-night restaurants around the country.

While some are contemplating how to implement a “brightnet”, the Swedish Pirate Party has recently launched the world’s first commercial darknet. This darknet, or private network, allows for completely anonymous file sharing between any users on the network. Richard Falkvinge, chairman of the Pirate Party, believes “we have a moral obligation to protect the citizens from the effects of the current routine surveillance. This is our technical means to do just that.” Visit Relakks.com to sign up.

TIME.com has come out with both a list of the 50 Coolest Websites and 25 websites they can’t live without. I’m rooting for Undress Me Robot to make the list next year.

Other Undress Me Robot staffers might not enjoy Gnarls Barkley so much, but I haven’t listened to the St. Elsewhere, and Crazy and Smiley Faces tempt me to go buy the album. Until then, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the Gnarls Barkley and Notorious B.I.G. mashup: Gnarls Biggie.

More YouTube goodness: Mat Weddle - “Hey Ya” (Outkast cover).
For the mp3: http://trafficsau.de/stuff/heyya.mp3

And more: Dante and Randal from Clerks in “The Flying Car”. An oldie but goodie.

Yousendit not cutting it these days? Try rarhost for all your .rar file hosting needs.

Wolverine or Freakboy?

George Bush may have read Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger, but I refuse to believe he “discussed the origins of existentialism”.

I leave you, at this premature ending, with sex.

An Ohio school board is expanding sex education following the revelation that 13 percent of one high school’s female students were pregnant last year.

A woman’s sex drive begins to plummet once she is in a secure relationship, according to research.

Blondes may have more fun but redheads have more sex, according to new research in Germany.

Sex is such an interesting topic. Whether you find it in orgasms during childbirth, or interviews with John Updike, it always manages to liven any dull day. Similarly, although I’m willing to bet some of you might disagree, I’ve always found the complicated doings of subatomic particles to be quite riveting.

It is important that women realize the possible benefits of child birth. Most notably, it’s orgasmic qualities.

On the other side of the orgasm: A family recently on vacation had a (not so) pleasant surprise when their children came across a porn filming at their hotel. “The first thing that the kids talked about was the fact that there were naked women getting their photos taken in the hotel,” Mr Crawford said.

(Not Safe For Work) Similarly, Penn and Teller’s show Bullshit covered the pros and cons of masturbation. Or, should I say, they covered the pros.

From masturbation to Madonna. A recent Mother Jones article discusses the world of conspiracy and Madonna. “I don’t normally gush like that but, according to WebMD, it’s common to the Madonna-shock decompression phase those lucky enough to see her live and that close normally go through post concert. Or it could be my thoughts were scrambled by a celebrity virus, a secret government-implanted psychotropic program piggybacking onto my own brainwaves, so as to mimic diva worship, while actually subjugating me to a much more sinister world domination agenda.”

Don’t worry, I’m slowly making my way to the serious.

A new blog from the New York Times covers all things video on the Internet. Only two posts so far, but Virginia Heffernan’s Screens blog is off to a good (albeit belated) start. Go there for your daily update on the unendless stream of videos put online.

An interlude before the real posts kick in: iStache! Easily add mustaches to any photo! (Mac only)

For anyone who has not heard of the author Haruki Murakami, I recommend reading this article from The Age on his life and writings. Given he is one of my favorite writers, I cannot say it is an interesting read even for those uninitiated to his works, but give it a go. And, if he sounds interesting, pick up a copy of Norwegian Wood or his upcoming collection of short stories, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

Also making the rounds is John Updike. In the news recently for his controversial new novel, he speaks to Nerve.com about sex, modernity, grittiness, and more.

Just one step from the science.

South By Southwest took place earlier this year, with its numerous days of music, film, and business. If you missed the show, the SXSW site now has a collection of podcasts dealing with various web and business topics. CSS Problem Solving, Tagging 2.0, The Future of Education in a Digitally Convergent World, and so on.

Now here’s the good stuff!

Seed Magazine, hip science magazine extraordinaire, discusses the present and future of nuclear fusion. The recent charter to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental reactor is a beautiful thing.

While reading the above article, you might notice mention of a certain Large Hadron Collider. This huge particle accelerator being built in Switzerland is set to open on July 1, 2007. Cosmic Variance has more on exactly how powerful it will be when it begins operating.

Creator and main poster on Cosmic Variance, Dr. Sean Carroll, recently talked with Daily Kos about physics, from the heights of cosmology and dark matter to the depths of particle physics and string theory. An informative, engaging interview, to say the least.

And, on a different note, thirty years of the Selfish Gene. Richard Dawkin’s seminal work The Selfish Gene had its thirtieth anniversary edition published this year, and the Times presents a review of it and its large influence on biology and evolution.

That’s it.

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